Wednesday 12 August 2009

Legacy (+ GP: Brighton) Report and Play of the Week #1

By Wagz

Hi guys. Jim's asked me to write a report on the Legacy event and GP Brighton. I don't have much to write on the second of these so I've included the first play of the week as a counterpoint to punt of the week.

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Grand Prix: Brighton

M10 sealed was the format for this and it is widely accepted as a fairly bad sealed format. The best core set sealed, but bad regardless. The fundamental reason for this is that the creatures aren't generally good enough, there are no real sources of card advantage and some huge bomb will get you there a lot of the time, more than normal. It is also decided by 2 uncommons, which due to the decreased number of cards in the set, occur quite a lot - Overrun and Fireball. If you don't have these or have an answer for these then you're likely to be in trouble.

My sealed pool put me in trouble. I basically had 2 Rampant Growth to get me to big creatures, but if my opponent had anything interesting then I was in trouble. With two byes I needed 5-2 to get to day 2. I won my first two matches by turning creatures sideways but I lost to Overrun, Master of the Wild Hunt and Whispersilk Cloak to drop at 4-3. Matt Kitchen was the only Leeds player carrying on after this if I recall correctly and ended the day at 5-4. I won't be unhappy when Zendikar comes along.

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Legacy

After bombing out of the Grand Prix, a few Team Leeds plucky hopefuls borrowed decks off Rik to enter the Legacy side event. Having played Faeries for days I tried testing the Counterbalance deck but lost to Zoo over and over again so brough the creature menagerie to the tables. This tournament included such great players as Antti Malin and Jim Marlow so it was going to be tough to get there.

I faced Stax in round 1 but my guys got me there and the burn finished him off when he got a Humility down. Goblins fell to me next before I beat a BW discard based deck. A Doran deck got the better of me but two successive Counterbalance decks (landing Choke against these is a killing) gave me the wins needed to ID into the top 8. I was pretty happy at this point but didn't really know what I was doing. I didn't know what the good or bad matchups were so I was just playing the situation I had - probably a good attitude to have in competitions as I felt very relaxed the whole time.

In the quarters I faced the guy I ID'd with using Merfolk. He let me land several creatures in play which was unfortunate for him my guys are much bigger than his (well, Grim Lavamancer means his Lords don't stop that fact). I won this match pretty quickly and wandered the venue for some food before the semis. After the match, the judge commented to my opponent that he'd kept pretty bad hands. I thought this was a bit unprofessional but my opponent seemed fine with it and it was his first Legacy event - Legacy events are pretty easy to top-X if you've not done one before. This was my second event and I top 4'd both so I should probably stop playing soon before I figure out what goes on.

In the semi finals I played against a spanish guy using Standard GW Elves combo. This was a surprisingly well positioned deck for the tournament since the control decks don't have the right counters for it and the Burrenton Forge-Tenders shut down my stuff a little bit. I couldn't get enough damage through against him but if I owned Ethersworn Canonists instead of Gaddock Teegs then the story might have been different. I landed Grim Lavamancers but you just can't get enough cards in the graveyard to deal with all the guys they play.

I walked away with 9 boosters but it would have been nice to get to the final and win the iPod. Maybe next time, eh?

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Play of the week #1

After making this one I had to take a minute off before sideboarding for game 3. After the match I ran around telling people. It's a bit of a doozy. Here's the situation:

Opp on 12, you on 14, plenty of lands in play on both sides (9ish easy). I have a Tidehollow Strix and he has a 3/2 ground guy plus a Maelstrom Nexus. I attack him to 10 and pass the turn.

He plays Magister Sphinx, cascading into Igneous Pouncer. The Sphinx's trigger puts me to 10 and he attacks me to 2. Ouch.

I untap and use Soul's Fire to deathtouch kill his Sphinx (had to explain that rule), attack him to 8.

He makes a Borderpost, perhaps not realising it counts as a spell for the Maelstrom Nexus. It cascades into Wretched Banquet, targeting my Strix. Here's the silliness. I cast Agony Warp, giving the 5/1 -0/-3 and the 3/2 -3/-0. This leaves him with just a 0/2 in play. The Wretched Banquet is countered on resolution due to my guy not being tied for the lowest power. He makes a Grixis Slavedriver (I had to stop him Cascading here) and passes the turn.

I untap and attack with my little man that can, the Tidehollow Strix, taking him to 6. I tap 8 of my lands and cycle the Resounding Thunder I'd been sandbagging to take the game for exactly lethal. Re-diculous. I've got there with just a Strix for 21 damage before but this was more satisfying.

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